


This is our Happy Ending, Derek

by DiscontentedWinter



Series: I Know Where Babies Come From, Derek [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Curtain Fic, M/M, Mpreg, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2018-12-11 00:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11703309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscontentedWinter/pseuds/DiscontentedWinter
Summary: A collection of curtain fics for the I Know Where Babies Come From, Derek universe.





	1. You Are Not Alone (Not Even You)

**Author's Note:**

> You may have read the first chapter as part of Word Soup. 
> 
> From now on all the little extras from the I Know Where Babies Come From, Derek will be posted here.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @fuckingbunnyslippers brought my attention to @ask-ichigo-and-rukia's beautiful prompt on tumblr: "*Clears throat* I have come to break your heart: Imagine Derek having a rough night maybe it's the anniversary of the fire or Laura's death or something, he feels so alone and worthless, and Stiles sings "No One Is Alone" from Into The Woods to him"

 

It starts when Claudie has a nightmare. Derek comes struggling out of sleep to find Stiles already cuddling their little girl in his arms and mumble-singing something under his breath as he sways from side to side and Claudie wails softy. Stiles is sleep-mussed with lines on his cheek from the way he sleeps with his face jammed into the pillow. His gaze is unfocussed, his movements slow. He might still be asleep, Derek thinks.

Derek doesn’t know the song that Stiles is murmuring, but very slowly Claudie’s wails trail off into hiccupping little sobs, and then just hiccups, and then a long drawn-out sigh, and finally silence. Stiles sways with her for a few minutes more, then sets her down in her crib again and turns around.

“Hey,” he murmurs, knocking his hip against Derek as he stands in the doorway of the nursery. “You didn’t have to get up.”

Derek wraps his arms around him and draws him close. He presses a kiss to the top of his head.

Stiles yawns, snuffles, and lets Derek draw him back to bed.

 

***

 

The song makes a reappearance years later, for Conor. Conor isn’t prone to nightmares like Claudie was for a little while there. But he is prone to dressing up and singing the songs he loves from the movies that he and Stiles watch avidly. Derek has come home more than once to find Stiles dressed like Cinderella, and Conor dressed like Little Red.

“I refuse to be embarrassed,” Stiles tells him one afternoon, lifting his skirts and stalking away haughtily. “I look _incredible_.”

Conor trails after him, the hem of the red hoodie he borrowed from Stiles sweeping the ground behind him.

Derek and Claudie exchange a dubious look, and Derek sets Claudie’s school backpack down on the floor.

“He does look incredible,” Derek admits to Claudie.

She bursts into giggles, and runs after Stiles and Conor.

 

***

 

“Holy fuck,” Stiles whispers as he holds the baby close. Because, in times of high emotion, Stiles is terrible at modifying his language around children. And not just his own children. He’s been asked not to return to story time at the library. Apparently he got overenthusiastic during _We’re Going on a Bear Hunt._ “Der!”

Derek crouches down in front of him. He curls one hand around Stiles’s knee, and the other around the baby’s crown.

“Der, where’s his _mom_?” Stiles asks, and his voice strains on the word, and then breaks.

Derek leans forward and inhales gently, learning the scent of their newest pup.

Luke is a gift, and he’s one that both Stiles and Derek are afraid they will get asked to give back at any time. They don’t know what pack he’s from. They don’t know how he ended up in Beacon Hills. They don’t know what happened to the people who loved him before they did.

With Luke, the song takes on a different tone when Stiles sings it.

“ _Sometimes people leave you_ ,” Stiles sings softly to Luke, “ _halfway through the wood_.”

And Luke stares up at him placidly, as if he doesn’t mind the way Stiles sometimes ends the song there, before it’s even really begun.

 

***

 

As the kids grow, Derek finds he misses the song. He misses listening to Stiles sing it to the kids. It’s just a song from some dumb movie, and the kids have outgrown it. They’re into different things now. Even Stiles doesn’t hum the song as much. He’s happy to be into whatever the kids are into.

But Derek kind of misses the song.

 

***

 

“Der?” Stiles asks, leaning in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

That should be obvious, surely. He’s on his knees in the living room, pulling every DVD they own out of the cabinet underneath the television, because he’s crazy. He’s a crazy man now. It’s almost three a.m. and why the fuck does this even matter right now? He finished his shift by midnight, and he came home to the dinner Stiles had left for him in the fridge, and he should be in bed, but for some reason he needs to find that stupid movie, find that stupid fucking song, and—

Stiles’s knees thump down onto the rug behind him, and he wraps his arms around him from behind. “Der.”

“What?” He stares at the glossy DVD covers shining on the floor.

How the hell did they end up with so many damn kids’ DVDs when DVDs are meant to be obsolete now anyway? Probably because the kids go through these intense periods of attachments to their favorites, and some of their less technologically-minded babysitters—Stiles’s dad, mostly—don’t have the first clue how to stream their movies. And it would be unthinkable to have a sleepover at Grandpa’s without _Minions_ , right?

“What are you doing?” Stiles asks again, his breath warm against Derek’s shoulder.

He has no fucking idea. No idea. “I wanted to find that movie. That one with the song?”

“What?”

"The _song_!”

He misses the warmth and the weight of him when Stiles stands up. But then Stiles moves around in front of him and holds out a hand to help him to his feet.

“Okay,” Stiles says quietly. “I was gonna ask what the hell is going on with you, but it’s the twelfth, isn’t it?”

Shit. Is it? Derek feels the blood drain from his face. How could he _forget_? He never forgets. It’s the anniversary of the fire, and it’s three in the morning, and what the hell is he even doing right now?

Stiles draws him away from the open cabinet and the cascade of DVDs. Draws him quietly up the stairs and into the quiet sanctuary of their bedroom. The moonlight is bright tonight. It paints their bedroom in silver, and makes Stiles’s skin glow.

Stiles shoves the comforter back and eases Derek down onto the mattress. Then he climbs in beside him, and puts his arms around him. It’s easy for Derek to close his eyes and rest his cheek on Stiles’s chest. Stiles is warm and smells of home.

And he always knows exactly what Derek needs.

Stiles’s voice is a little croaky, and he stumbles over a word or two, maybe wavers a little between notes. He sounds exactly the same way he did when he sang this song to their kids. It’s not just the song. It’s not just the words. It’s the way that Stiles sings it, like it’s a promise he’s making, one that Derek didn’t even consciously realize he needed to hear tonight.

“ _You are not alone_ ,” Stiles tells him. “ _Believe me, no one is alone_.”

Derek closes his eyes as Stiles cards his fingers gently through his hair. Tears sting his eyes as he cries for his lost family. As he thanks whatever power exists in the universe for his new one. And the entire time he cries, until the moment he at last falls into an exhausted sleep, Stiles sings to him:

“ _Someone is on your side. You are not alone_.”


	2. It's Not a Secret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For an anon on tumblr who asked: Speaking of 'I Know Where Babies Come From Derek', did you ever have any ideas about what would happen if Claude ever found out where she really came from? I often wonder that myself whenever I read through the story again.

It’s never a secret.

When Stiles is pregnant with Conor—Jesus Christ, his _life_ —Claudie says, “Tata, was I in your belly once?”

“No, growly girl,” Stiles says. “You came from somewhere very special. You came from a different world. Your Tata and your Daddy in that world loved you very, very much, and they tried very, very hard to keep you, but they had to send you here so that me and Daddy could keep you safe.”

Claudie’s three and a half. It’s enough of an answer when she’s three and a half.

When she’s a little older he and Derek take her into the Preserve, to the little rocky outcrop that overlooks the shallow gorge below. There’s a tree here that at one time all the Hales carved their initials into. It’s more of a memorial to them than the cold monument in the cemetery. They used to come here and watch the stars. Sometimes, from the look on Derek’s face, Stiles thinks that he can still hear their laughter.

This is also the place that they scattered the ashes of the mage, one of Claudie’s fathers. The Stiles from that world died getting her through to safety. His Derek died too. It’s important, Stiles thinks, that they aren’t forgotten. That Claudie knows they gave their lives for her.

They sit down under the stars and Derek tells the kids about the Hales. He shows Claudie and Luke how to use their claws to carve their initials in the tree. Stiles helps Conor do his with a pocketknife.

“We don’t know what happened, exactly,” Stiles says later. Claudie is wedged between him and Derek. “He was…”

Stiles can’t finish.

He was burned. He was screaming in pain. He cried when he held his daughter for the last time.

“He was a hero,” Derek says. He holds Stiles gaze in the moonlight. “He was brave, and strong, and he ripped a hole in the universe to save you, Claudie.”

“Oooh,” Luke whispers, eyes wide, and scrambles into Derek’s lap.

Conor hums and nods, like ripping a hole in the universe is the obvious thing to do. For Conor, it probably is.

“He loved you so much,” Derek continues. “And so do Tata and I. We love all of you so, so much.”

Claudie is always a little quieter after these visits to the Preserve. It’s a lot for a child to work through, Stiles figures. It’s never surprising that he often wakes up the morning after to find she’s climbed into bed with them in the middle of the night.

 

***

 

Claudie’s twelve when it happens. It’s weird. Stiles has been expecting something like this for years. Claudie is stubborn and intractable, and her glare game is top notch stuff. Still, it somehow takes him by surprise.

“No,” he says as he’s peeling the potatoes for dinner and how is it almost six? Where the fuck has the day gone? Luke still hasn’t finished his homework, Conor probably hasn’t even started his, there’s crap all over the living room floor, the cat just threw up a hairball, and he really isn’t in the mood to listen to Claudie whine about how her life just isn’t faaaaaiiirrr. “No, you know you can’t go to Emily’s sleepover. Not that close to a full moon, Claudie. It’s—”

“You’re not my real father!” Claudie screams at him, her eyes flashing, her face screwed up with rage, and it feels like it comes out of nowhere.

He freezes. He goes cold, and then numb, and his vision swims for a second.

He sets the potato peeler down. Turns to face her.

“What did you say?” he asks.

She juts out her chin, looking like a mini-Derek. “I said you’re not my real father!”

And then she storms away. Stiles can hear her stomping her way upstairs.

It’s been years since Stiles had a panic attack, and fucked if he’ll let his twelve-year-old daughter be the cause of one. He grips the edge of the counter, and leans over slightly. He remembers to breathe. Breathe in and hold it. Breathe out slowly. In and hold it. Out slowly.

A small warm body worms in between him and the counter. “Tata?” Luke asks.

Stiles forces a smile. “Hey, kiddo.”

Luke pats Stiles on the hand, his dark skin contrasting with Stiles’s. “Don’t be sad, Tata. I love you.”

“I love you too, Luke,” Stiles says. He sinks down onto the kitchen floor, and Luke snuggles in beside him. That’s where Conor finds them a few minutes later.

“I called Dad,” he says.

 

***

 

When Derek gets home he hugs Stiles, kisses him, and promises to take care of it. Minutes later he’s wolfed out, flashing his alpha eyes at a mulish Claudie.

“We’re going for a run,” he tells her.

Stiles and the boys eat dinner alone.

Hours later, when the boys are in bed, Derek and Claudie come back.

“I’m sorry, Tata,” Claudie whispers, sidling up to him.

He hugs her. “I know.”

“It doesn’t just hurt Tata and me if you say things like that,” Derek tells her. His voice is gentle. “It hurts your brothers too. You are all our children. It doesn’t matter how you got here. You are our cubs. You are family. You are _pack_.”

Claudie cries.

Stiles does too.

 

***

 

When she’s thirteen, Claudie has to do a project on her family tree for school.

“This is all bullshit,” she announces.

John Stilinksi, who’s sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee in his hand, gives her the side eye. “Language.”

Claudie sighs and rolls her eyes.

“Why is it bullshit?” Stiles asks curiously, chopping celery.

“Well, that’s where she gets it,” John says.

“That was never really a mystery,” Stiles tells him. “Claudie?”

Claudie scowls. “I have to say that I’m Dad’s, but not yours!”

Stiles leaves the counter and comes and sits down at the table with them. “Claudie, I was sixteen when you arrived. Believe me, as much as I would have loved to put my name on that questionable birth certificate of yours, not only would that have raised a lot of eyebrows in the scientific community, but I’m pretty sure Grandpa would have had to arrest Dad.”

“Pretty sure I wanted to anyway,” John says.

Claudie smirks a little at that.

“This is our crazy life,” Stiles tells her. “People can’t know the truth about you, or about Conor.”

On paper, Claudie is Derek’s biological daughter and Conor is Stiles’s biological son. The assumption around town is that Claudie’s mother was an ex-girlfriend of Derek’s, and that with Conor they used a surrogate. The only kid they don’t have to lie through their teeth about is Luke, who is obviously adopted. And they still have to shut their mouths about the whole werewolf thing.

“But you’re both my dads!” Claudie says, the corners of her mouth pulling down in a trademark Sourwolf frown.

“Of course we are,” Stiles tells her. “So you put that. And if anyone wants to tell you you’re wrong, I will fight them for you.”

Blood doesn’t matter. Family matters. Pack matters.

“And I’m going to put all my aunts and uncles and cousins in as well,” Claudie declares.

“Do it!” Stiles says, because he is going to love getting the call from Claudie’s teacher about this.

“Really?” she asks.

“Hell, yeah,” Stiles says. “Someone has to pave the way for Cam and Nina.”

Cam and Nina are Allison and Scott and Isaac’s kids. If the teachers at Claudie’s school think that the Stilinski-Hale kids have a non-traditional family situation, they ain’t seen nothing yet.

Claudie snorts.

Stiles leans over and gives her a quick kiss on the top of the head. “Now you get started and let me get back to chopping the celery, okay? Otherwise we’ll have nothing to eat this tzatziki with.”

“You told me you made brownies!” John exclaimed. “I came out here for brownies.”

“I lied,” Stiles tells him.

John is outraged. “That’s _bullshit_!”

“Well, that’s where we get it,” Claudie says, and starts work on her project.

 

***

 

It’s never a secret.

As Claudie grows older she spends more time in the place where they spread the mage’s ashes. She likes to go there to sit and think. She sometimes comes home a little quieter, a little more introspective. It’s a lot to work through. On her birthday—the day Stiles and Derek chose for her, because they couldn’t know—she goes there first.

Stiles wonders if she talks to him, and what she says.

He wonders if she forgives him for not being here for her. He wonders if she truly understands how hard he tried to hold on.

He wonders if, somehow, the mage listens.

He likes to think he does.

 


	3. Derek Also Knows Where Babies Come From

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the anon who asked on tumblr: here's a quick fic about Stiles breaking the news that he's pregnant with Conor. For anyone keeping track, this would slot into I Know Where Babies Come From, Derek, just before the epilogue.

There’s a lot in Stiles’s life that doesn’t make sense. He’s eighteen years old, and he’s _married_.

To Derek Hale.

Who is a werewolf.

And they have a kid.

Stiles has learned to roll with a lot of punches in the past few years, especially since Claudie—the daughter of an alternate version of him and Derek—was dumped in his lap one day when he was sixteen. Or, more precisely, dumped on his doorstep. But this punch here right now, this one hits him right in the gut. And Stiles doesn’t roll.

He staggers.

He stares at the little blue lines on the white plastic thingamajig, and the little blue lines stare back at him.

He took the test half as a joke, because he’s been feeling off lately. At least he told himself it was a joke, but what is his life, seriously? There’s a reason he didn’t do this at the loft he shares with Derek and Claudie while the house in the Preserve gets rebuilt. There’s a reason he used his key and let himself into his childhood home while his dad’s at work. Because he told himself this was a joke, but a part of him was terrified that maybe it wasn’t, and maybe he wanted to do this in private. Just in case, for some crazy reason, it was real.

And it’s fucking real.

Stiles sits down heavily on the toilet seat, and fishes his phone out of his pocket. He sent Derek a text earlier saying he was stopping by his dad’s place to grab a few things—half of Stiles’s stuff is still in his childhood room because he’s a human disaster and has never got around to shifting it all to Derek’s place—but he already has two texts from Derek saying he’s finished work at the station, collected Claudie from daycare, and they’re going to grab takeaway for dinner, and what would Stiles like?

Stiles isn’t hungry, and the reason for his nausea is those two little blue lines, isn’t it? That, and his sense of impending panic.

He unlocks his phone screen with his trembling thumb, and calls his dad.

“Hey, kiddo.” John doesn’t sound overly concerned when he answers. “What’s up?”

“D-Dad.”

John’s voice hardens in an instant. “Stiles. What’s wrong?”

Stiles tries to push the words out past his rising panic. “I’m at your place. Can you come home? Please?”

He ends the call, and leans forward on the toilet seat, letting his head hang down and trying to count his breaths.

It feels like only minutes before his dad’s cruiser screeches into the driveway, but it must be longer than that. Stiles forces himself to his feet, jamming the pregnancy test in the back pocket of his jeans, and meets his dad halfway down the steps.

“Kiddo.” His dad grabs him before he stumbles, and then he’s feeling along Stiles’s arms and head and across his back, checking for some injury maybe. For some reason Stiles is such a fucking mess right now. “What’s happened?”

Stiles bursts into tears.

John ushers him the rest of the way down the stairs and into the living room. He sets him down on the couch, and crouches in front of him. “Are you hurt?”

Stiles shakes his head, and wipes his nose on the end of his sleeve.

John holds his gaze. “Did you and Derek have a fight?” His eyes narrow. “Did he do something?”

“Jesus, Dad, no!” Stiles loves his dad's protectiveness, but the idea that Derek is ever going to be the one who fucks up in their relationship is just ridiculous.

“Okay,” John says. “Then what’s going on, son?”

Stiles digs the pregnancy test out of his pocket and shoves it in John’s face.

John stares at it blankly for a moment, just like Stiles did. Then his forehead creases. “Is this _yours_?”

Stiles sniffles and nods.

“Yours?” John repeats. “Not a girl’s?”

Stiles manages a laugh at that. It sounds more like a panicked squawk. “Not a girl’s.”

John looks at him helplessly, and shakes his head. “Oh, Mischief. At some point I wish you’d stop surprising me.”

Stiles squawks again, but something in his dad’s tone—half full of love, and half full of ‘Jesus, my kid’—relaxes him enough so that he can pull a breath in. His dad has been using the same fondly exasperated tone all of Stiles’s life, during every trip to the ER, during every parent-teacher conference, and especially during Stiles’s ill-fated and short-lived stint in the Scouts, to which Stiles was politely asked not to return.

"Seems like this was a surprise to you too," John says. 

"Sure fucking was." 

John doesn't even chide him for his language. “Is this something to do with the mage?” 

“I dunno.” Stiles shrugs. “I guess?”

“Okay,” John says. He eases himself upright, his knees creaking, and then sits down beside Stiles on the couch. “Oh, Stiles.”

Stiles leans against him. “What am I gonna do, Dad?”

“That’s up to you,” John tells him. “You and Derek have your heads screwed on right. You’ll figure this out.”

Stiles’s expression gives him away.

“Stiles.” John raises his eyebrows. “Have you _told_ Derek?”

Stiles shakes his head.

“Call him,” John says. “Tell him to come over now.” He reaches out and tousles Stiles’s hair. “Because I love you, kid—Jesus, I love you—but you know this isn’t a conversation you should be having with me.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, and swallows. “I know.”

 

***

 

Claudie sweeps into the house like a tornado, and John scoops her up.

“How’s my little princess, huh?”

She squeals in delight.

Derek follows her in, a bag of noodles in his hand.

“I’ll take those,” John says, and swipes the noodles from him. He carries a giggling Claudie toward the kitchen.

Stiles is still sitting on the couch. He has no idea what he looks like right now, or what his scent is doing, but something must be seriously off because Derek’s expression shifts and he strides forward.

“What’s going on? Are you hurt?”

Stiles sucks in a deep breath. “You’re gonna want to take a seat for this one, Der.”

A million micro expressions cross Derek’s face before he settles on his default: a resting bitchface that would make Jackson Whittemore envious. Stiles has known him too long to be fooled by it. Derek’s afraid of whatever it is Stiles is going to say. Like what? He thinks Stiles is going to break up with him or something? Seriously, Derek needs to work on his self esteem, because Stiles is sticking to him like a barnacle for the rest of their natural lives, no fucking question.

“It’s nothing bad,” Stiles says, and wrinkles his nose. “I don’t think. Except, shit, Stanford. I’m supposed to be going to Stanford!”

Derek searches his face. “Why wouldn’t you be going to Stanford?”

Derek has been adamant about Stiles going to college. Adamant that nothing is going to hold him back, including him and Claudie. Stiles protested he would have been just as happy going to the local community college, but Derek can read him like a book.

“Because of this,” Stiles says, and holds up the pregnancy test.

He sees the same dumb shock on Derek’s face that he did on his own in the mirror, and then on his dad’s. That ‘does not compute’ moment, because Derek also knows where babies come from. And it’s not from two guys. But Derek also knows that the usual rules don’t always apply.

Claudie’s giggles, drifting in from the kitchen, are proof of that.

And then Derek’s expression softens into something vulnerable, something sweet, something approaching wondrous, and he reaches out a hand as though he’s going to touch Stiles’s abdomen, before he pulls it away again. He clears his throat and says, gruffly, “What do you want to do?”

“No,” Stiles says. “Don't give me that. What do _we_ want to do?”

And Derek reaches out his hand and places it against Stiles’s belly, and right there, in that gentle touch and in that silence, is all the answer either of them need.

 

***

 

They celebrate over Singapore noodles and lemonade, crowded around John’s kitchen table.

“You’ll need to go to Deaton,” John says. “And Melissa. Not that I don’t trust Deaton, but he’s a vet, not an obstetrician.”

“What’s an obstetrician?” Claudie asks.

“A type of dinosaur,” Stiles replies automatically, and she rolls her eyes at him. “I’ll see Melissa too, but, I mean, chances of finding an expert in this situation are kind of slim, right?”

“What situation?” Claudie asks.

“Eat your noodles, growly girl,” Derek murmurs.

“And you’re still going to Stanford,” John says, poking is chopsticks in Stiles’s direction.

“Still going to Stanford,” Stiles agrees, and takes a deep breath. Everything seems suddenly so big and complicated. Like, does the universe just enjoy fucking with him at this point? “Holy shit.”

“Tata said a rude word!” Claudie pipes up.

Derek reaches out and catches his hand. “It’s okay, Stiles,” he says. “We’ve got this, okay?”

“Yeah.” Stiles presses his free hand against his abdomen, and puts his panic aside for a moment to marvel at the thought that this is happening, and it’s a miracle. “Yeah, Der, we’ve got this.”

Because if there’s one thing Stiles has learned in his crazy fucking life it’s that the universe can throw anything it likes at him, but as long as he’s got Derek by his side, there’s nothing he can’t handle.

They’ve got this.

 


End file.
